


Fabula Exstant de Paradiso (A Myth About Heaven)

by LittleKnownArtist



Series: The Magne Family [2]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Family Secrets, Gen, I hurt the baby, I hurt the cinnamon roll, I'm Sorry, Lucifer is a terrible dad, Mentioned Charlie Magne/Vaggie - Freeform, Mentions of Greek religions, Minor Charlie Magne/Vaggie, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Secrets, i mean it's hell so its a little hard to avoid, mentions of Buddhism, mentions of Islam, mentions of Judiasm, most of these are in the (if ya squint) category, not be gettin that dad of the year award
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26536993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleKnownArtist/pseuds/LittleKnownArtist
Summary: Charlie wants to save the sinners from the yearly massacres. It takes baby steps, one sinner at a time. Including the newly damned, committing the sins of telling untruths. She plans to catch them in their lies...except...is it possible that they aren't lying? Is it possible that the lies actually begin in heaven itself?Has she been lied to for her entire life? Has she been lied to so that the truth won't break her heart?
Series: The Magne Family [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083086
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	Fabula Exstant de Paradiso (A Myth About Heaven)

**Author's Note:**

> I make fun of homophobes a bit (a lot) so if you feel I'm targetting you? I don't know how much sympathy I can have for you.
> 
> To make things clear: Original sin has several interpretations but almost always the commonality is this: you're born with this sin because you're a descendant of Adam. Pretty wacky to think you're commiting a sin before you've taken your second breath, ne?

Whenever someone crossed the hellish garden gates onto the land before the palace, Lucifer knew about it. When it was someone he was familiar enough with to recognize their aura, he could prepare to greet them or send word to the Hellhounds at the door to rip their throat out. When it was his own daughter, he knew she could bypass the guards without a word. She was always welcome home, even if she hadn't been home in nearly a decade.

"Is that Charlotte?" Lilith asked, looking up from her music sheets, becoming aware of their daughter's subtle presence as she crossed the inner palace's threshold.

"Hm...has she called you recently?"

"Yes, but she didn't say she was visiting...oh shit, you don't think she had another breakup, do you?"

Lucifer sighed. He tracked her movements and...

"She's not heading to her room, that's weird. If it was a breakup, she could be too hammered to find her way, I suppose," Lucifer stood, flashing a wary look to his lovely wife, "light of my life, let me take care of it. Come find us when you're done there, may want to bring tissues, you know how weepy she gets."

With a snap, Lucifer was gone.

* * *

“No, this is…I don’t…” A blonde head was dipped low over file folders scattered on the floor of the aptly named “File Room”. Her eyes scanned the documents before her with increasing confusion in their colorless black depths. She shook her head, slamming the folder closed and reaching into the lone file cabinet’s drawer, an endless cavity that held every name of every person who had ever been damned. The name and death date she wanted was always right at her fingertips whenever she went looking, no matter how obscure, no matter their dying alias.

She pulled another folder, and this folder was even thinner than the last. The list of sins was remarkably short. She skimmed the short list, barely two pages of sins. She shook her head again, her eyes growing wetter as she read the pages over again, frustration and concern flooding onto her face as she read the list of sins. She was missing something. This girl’s sins were nowhere as numerous as they should be for eternal damnation. There has to be something big she’s missing. **_Murder. Voluntary cannibalism. Torture._** Something which would make her placement in Hell seem reasonable. Sure, with people like Adolf Schicklgruber-Hitler, Gary Leon Ridgeway or even Alastor, any normal list of damnable sins would seem tame by comparison, but this didn’t make any sense to her.

Charlie began mumbling to herself, looking up from her reading only when she heard the door to the room click open, and a blond head poke in with a familiar, yet curious, smile on his face.

“I didn’t expect to find you here of all places,” the Devil said, one hand planted on his hip, the other on his apple-topped cane. He glanced around the room. 

“Sort of dusty, you know I never do go in here.” He shook his head, smiling gently at his daughter. Perhaps she was trying to dig up dirt on an ex-lover? If she wanted to blackmail or ruin the reputation of someone who’d hurt her, well, now that was certainly something he could get into! He’d definitely help Charlotte show some cretin what it means to fuck with the Magne family.

Wait. Wasn't she seeing that Vaggie girl? A shame, he actually liked that one.

“Daddy,” she started, her voice nearly cracking from just that, “I don’t-I don’t understand anything.”

“Ah, apple pie,” he began, dipping to one knee, ready for the inevitable ‘ _why’d she/he do this to me?_ ’ breakdown he had encountered several times up until that point.

“She didn’t deserve you. You’re the princess, no one even compares to--”

“It’s not that,” she huffed, rolling her eyes before wiping some of the moisture from the corners of her eyes. She shook the folder in front of her, indicating it was something in that folder she didn’t understand. Lucifer raised a dark brow, a suspicion sneaking up in the back of his mind when he glanced the date on the folder. It was from that year. More precisely, it was from yesterday. The information on the sinner held within had only died yesterday.

“Charlotte? Do you know this sinner?” His expression darkened as he spoke, but the princess didn’t look away from her father. 

“Yes.” Her voice was firm although she sniffled a moment after.

“And how did you meet them?”

Charlie squared her shoulders. They both knew the answer, and she found some resolve in her previous act of defiance.

“I got intel about where the next drop zone would be and--”

She was interrupted by that aggravated noise from her father, and the sound of him slapping his palm to his own face.

“Charlotte! A drop zone?! Honestly!”

“Dad--”

“There’s hordes of the worst of the worst waiting at the drop zones--” and he was right. Overlords and Dealmakers like her good friend Alastor stalked the drop zones when they could figure out where they had moved to. When the newly dead fell through the holes in the veil into Hell there was always the most dangerous sort of demons waiting to corrupt and devour, to take advantage of the confused and terrified new arrivals. Taking them into workhouses, the sex trades and tricking them into predatory deals were among the most common utilizations of the drop zones. In recent decades with the overpopulation, this practice was somewhat less common, with the workhouses full of so many sinners that work had almost become easy, and prostitutes bringing less and less cash with overcrowded street corners. Overlords and kingpins took more to protecting their territories and profits than looking for fresh meat, leaving most new sinners to less powerful beings to use as they saw fit or leave them in the streets to steal and beg, and to be the first to fall to the exterminators during the purges. 

“I can handle myself! This is beside the point!” Charlie shot back, fangs sharpened in her annoyance and volume rising above her father’s. He huffed, standing back up straight, crossing his arms like a pouting child. Really, who was the parent in this situation?

“I just don’t want you getting hurt, you know that.”

“I was careful, and Alastor went with me.” He had been looking for fresh blood, ready to make a deal or two, but escorting the princess and watching her take in the terrified faces of the newly damned was entertaining enough for him. Lucifer twirled his finger in a whoop-dee-doo motion.

“I was hoping to come across someone with as few sins as possible. Before anyone got drugged up or somehow else forced into sinning. I think, some people believe that if they‘re already in Hell, what does it matter if they hurt other people, or-or-or commit any other sins, you know? You and I both know that the sin tally doesn’t stop when a sinner arrives in Hell. So…I figured if I were to redeem anyone, starting with as few sins as possible was…” She trailed off, wrapping her arms around herself, the file folder pressed to her chest, “And I thought I found some? Two sisters who had died in a fire. I brought them back to the Hotel, and one of them was so scared and confused, she wouldn’t stop crying! I couldn’t get a word out of her besides-besides…”

Lucifer’s face fell. He knew exactly what she was on the verge of discovering. He couldn’t tell her. He and his wife had planned to never tell her. They could not tell their compassionate, bubbly, optimistic, perfect baby girl what they knew. Lucifer had wanted to tell her again and again. In fits of rage he had nearly spilled the beans more than once. More than a dozen times he’d told her to give up because it didn’t matter. It was stupid, and she would fail, and none of it really mattered anyway. ‘Give up, Charlotte, just give up.’ He loved his daughter dearly, but he didn’t understand her one bit. One thing he did know, however, was that Lilith had slapped her hand over his mouth plenty of times. 

But now she was on the precipice of understanding. She was so close. She was so close to understanding the Magne’s best kept secret. Many had guessed as much, but only fallen angels and the world’s first sinner knew the truth. And his only child was so close to cracking the code. He was the king of all liars and traitors, but if his daughter asked him, would he be able to lie to her sweet face about this secret he’d kept hidden away for so long? If she got so close to it, could he prevent himself from spilling his guts?

“Besides to ask ‘why?’ She just kept sobbing and crying and asking what they did to deserve Hell. I mean, I understand that it might come as a small surprise, but, like…Bad people go to Hell. The older sister, she was--she was adamant that they were good people. She swore up and down that they’d never even cheated on a test. Never even had boyfriends, never missed a day in church--I-I knew they were lying. They had to be. B-because,” Charlie shook her head, opening her hands to stare down at her palms, “because only bad people go to hell. People whose sins are so severe that they can’t be overlooked. People like--”

“Dumpling? What are some sins that you know?” 

Charlie’s eyes shot to her father’s face. He wore a smile, but it was wistful and strangely sad, and he stared out the open door, into one of the many hallways on the massive palace. The question didn’t make sense in her mind.

“What?” She wore a bewildered expression.

“What are some sins you know of?” His question was more pointed this time as he turned his serpentine eyes down to his daughter. Her brows knit, but she entertained his strange question. 

“There’s, uh, wrath? Th-there’s lying, stealing--”

“Sex?”

Charlie cringed.

“Yeah, I mean, I guess so?”

“Do you think that every parent is a bad person?” Sex being typically what produces a child.

“What? No! Not all of them.”

“And Vaggie, you love her, don’t you?”

“Where are you going with this?” Charlie scoffed, “Of course I love her!”

“And have you had sex with her--”

“Dad, what the fuck?!” At that she stood, cheeks flushing, embarrassment mixing with her confusion in this very strange interrogation. Lucifer smiled. At least she wasn’t in tears anymore.

“Regardless of whether you have or not, I’ve seen you smooch her,” he raised one gloved hand, palm up, “and acting on homosexual urges is a sin. Shit! You know even having the urges at all is a sin in some sects, I’m pretty sure. Afraid I haven’t kept up with modern theology as much as I should.” He chuckled, taking in Charlie’s new, lost and mildly disturbed expression. Poor kid, she’d always worn her heart on her face.

“Do you think being in love makes someone a bad person? Isn’t homosexuality supposed to be a sin?”

“I…I mean. It’s written as a sin, but, like…Love is also supposed to be the purest thing in the universe.”

“Is it?” He tapped his cane on the floor with those two syllables.

“Does being in love with each other, taking out of consideration any other sins, make you and Vaggie sinners? Does it make you bad people?”

“Dad, stop…Maybe it does, okay. But I don’t think--I don’t think it’s a bad thing? I mean--I-I-…” Charlie hid herself with her hair, trying to hide herself away so that she might have a second to collect herself and sort through her swirling emotions and thoughts. 

“I’ll have you know that I approve wholeheartedly of you taking to women or men--I actually kind of prefer the girls, they’re rarely the douchebags the boys are--but what is that phrase the homophobes like to use? Hmm…Ah! It’s ‘we all sin’,” he mocked in a whiny, feminine voice, “but they’ll still bar lesbians entry from bakeries while fucking Pastor Tom behind their husband’s back.” Lucifer laughed.

“Dammit if they aren’t right though.” His laughter cut off abruptly. “All humans sin, and those fucking Karens who equate something as beautiful as loving a partner to stealing a car or skimming off the little league team's funding, well…”

“Lucifer.” 

Both heads turned back to the doorway where a vision of decadence and beauty stood. Her slender brows were knit and her fierce silver gaze was affixed the devil’s. Her hair fell over her shoulders in mesmerizing waves that swept across and accentuated her curves in the most distracting of waves, even for Hell’s king. But not now.

“Don’t you dare.” Her voice was as stern as Charlie had ever heard it, and she looked between her parents.

“Dare what?” Charlie asked, taking a step closer to the door, clutching the folder tighter.

“My sweet, it’s been long enough,” he tried.

“No.” Her tone was clipped, her black lips pressed thin.

“Mom? Dad?”

“You don’t think we’d be able to keep it from her forev--”

“Keep--? What are you keeping from me?” Charlie’s voice had risen with her anxiety level.

“You will **break** her.” Hell’s queen had a note of finality to her tone.

“It’s best she knows the truth, admit it.” 

Lilith stabbed a finger directly into Lucifer’s unflinching face.

“I’m not going to watch you shatter her worldview.” She spun, golden hair trailing behind her, only the sound of her heels clicking down the hall was left with the silence that stretched until it was broken by the Princess’s soft voice.

“Dad…? What’s going on? What truth?”

“I’ll get to that in about, mn. Two minutes, apple blossom. Maybe less.” He stooped to lift the file folder which had been discarded on the floor.

“Take this,” he said, offering it to Charlie. She took it, tilting her head to the side, her brow furrowed in confusion and fear. What was he getting to?

“Hell is home to sinners, right? But some of the sins, like falling in love with the ‘wrong’ gender or wearing cloth of two wefts don’t seem to make sense, right?”  
Charlie nodded.

“Some of the sins seem like really minor things, don’t they? Sure, murder is one thing, but what are some of the sins you saw on those girls’ files? Give me one that seems ridiculous. Find me one they have in common.”

“Um, I…” She glanced through the first page of one, she knew she’d seen it on the other file, “they both lied about farting,” Charlie scoffed, “they were children. One was four and one was six.”

“Kids are gross little buggers,” Lucifer snorted, passing Charlie to open the file cabinet, grabbing a handful of files, tucking them under his arm.

“Yeah, but I don’t think they’d be damned for something like that--before they could even read.” Charlie frowned when Lucifer held up one finger.

“Hold that thought,” He said, his grin stretching unnaturally wide and his snake eyes constricting further. He laid the file folders on the lone desk and motioned for his daughter to follow him.

“What else do they have in common?”

“Uh--” Charlie began to look for another sin when he stopped her.

“Actually, let’s do this,” he swept his hand over the folders simultaneously lifting the cover from each of them and flipping past the cover page, displaying the first page of sins to every one of the eleven folders on the desk. 

“You’ll find at least one sin in common among all of these sinners. Find it for me, hm?”

Charlie scoffed at her father.

“You said two minutes. This’ll take all day.”

“I’ll make it easy for you.” He tapped the paper on one of the folders without even looking, his gloved finger right beside the top line, “Read this for your old pop.” Charlie raised a brow, but looked down at the paper nonetheless.

“1. Adam’s Sin. Category: Heritage Sin.” Charlie’s breathing stopped as that line sunk in. Lucifer’s grin grew ever wider.

“Yup.”

Charlie’s wide eyes rose to her father’s.

  
“No,” she breathed, only above a whisper.

“Original sin,” the king muttered, "the first sin committed by every human." As he straightened his back his smile slipped away. He would have liked to keep his smile on. How ironic that he was thrown from heaven, only for his Father’s supposed greatest creation to be cursed to his same fate. All those borne of Adam's line shall carry with them his sin. The original sin. The Devil lifted his hat to tuck a strand of hair beneath it.

“You’re wrong.” Charlie’s eyes were wet once again. She took a step back. She couldn’t comprehend all this. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. There was no way that she had roamed Hell for centuries with stories of paradise, of precious images painted for her of soft clouds and kind angels. Of nectar and ambrosia. Everything that the good people strived for. Of greeting lost loved ones and listening to the strumming of heavenly harps. Never tiring, never feeling hunger nor pain. Something you could work towards. Everyone could be a good person if they just tried. Years of watching her people be slaughtered and doomed to walk forever in the all-consuming loneliness of the void. If all of that was a lie--a pretty lie, all wrapped up nice and inconceivably perfect--then what had she spent all these years trying to achieve? There was no way this was all for nothing. There was no way this was it. There was no way Hell was the only afterlife awaiting people. She had lived out her entire life in Hell, with imps and hellhounds and--she may not have had anything to compare to, but sinners did. There was no way she’d only ever been offering empty promises.

“The proof is in the pudding,” he said, gesturing to the files she held, “all sinners go to Hell. And all humans sin.”

“No!” Charlie closed her eyes, fighting back her tears.

“What about--what about those who repent? What about that--that guy! Uhm. Jesus! Jesus!”

“The prophet?” Lucifer raised a brow. Sure, one religion had centered around the guy, but in others he was just some prophet, right alongside Muhammad, and in most? He didn’t exist. The name was mistranslated from the more common root spelling for ‘ _Joshua_ ’. 

“What about…” tears were quickly wiped away “what about children? Where do children go?”

“Good question!” He shrugged, “not exactly something I would touch with a ten foot pole, what with the meat and workhouse industry being what it is in Hell.”

“I…That’ not _right_. People go to heaven. Some people go to heaven. That’s the whole reason it’s talked about like some great place, right? To make people look forward to…” Her head fell.

“Yes, well, it’s like this: those without sin will be allowed to go to heaven. The catch? Everyone sins. Therefore everyone goes to Hell. Pretty simple. That friend of yours, that Alastor fellow and I are both Dealmakers, and the fine print in these sorts of things are what keeps us in business.”

“So everyone is doomed to the void?” Charlie wiped her eyes, but at that moment, her voice fell flat. She was just barely holding back a flood of raw emotion, her lip trembling.

“Would seem so. It’s not so bad. Laws of energy still apply, somehow. After your mind is lost, your soul gets recycled. From what I’ve heard.”

“I don’t believe you.” It was a whisper.

“What?” He hadn’t heard her, stepping closer.

“I don’t. **_Believe you_**.” Charlie spat.

“Well, you don’t have to, but it’s better that you know. Now that you do, though, doesn’t this redempti--”

“Liar!” Her hand fisted in her father’s coat, and Lucifer allowed himself to be drawn closer to his daughter’s face, so much like his own. Like his magnificent Lilith, too. Snake-like eyes were wide and rimmed in scarlet, great red horns pushed through her scalp and raw power tousled her hair. If only she weren't so prone to tears, she would be a perfectly fearsome heir for sinners and demons to look upon. He smiled.

“I am the king of liars, little one. But no, not now.” She released his coat, hand lifting to point towards the door.

“Get out.”

“Apple pie…”

“Out!!” She shoved her father out the door, slamming the door in his face. Lucifer tilted his head to the side. He hoped for her sake, she didn’t believe him after all. He certainly felt better with that weight off his shoulders, but did he give the weight to his daughter instead? He tried the door handle. The door didn’t have a lock, but the handle was hot to the touch, she had melted it shut. She knew how easily he could break down the door, but the melted handle sent a message: she wanted to be left alone with her feelings. 

Lucifer turned to head back towards his parlor, when he realized he’d probably be sleeping in a guest room tonight. He looked back at the melted shut door. If she didn’t come out in two hours, he would break down the door and at least wrestle Charlie into a proper bed rather than leave her to cry it out all night on the hard floor.

On the other side of the door, Charlie was doing just that. Whole body wracking with sobs and muttering. A funny thought came to her once; she probably looked as broken and inconsolable as that younger sister.

**Author's Note:**

> I've said it many times before, I can only envision two ways you end up in Hell in Hazbin Hotel.
> 
> One:  
> Everyone goes to Hell. **Used for this story.** Why? I cannot see any reason for most people to go to hell when they're a product of the society we live in, and certain things like drug abuse, alcoholism, promiscuity and the like are all just unhealthy and easily accessible coping mechanisms for the trauma they've experienced in life, even (especially) when that trauma is historical and results from decades of trauma built into family systems. Theft is a way to make ends meet, sometimes. If you can go to Hell for being in a loving gay relationship, or having premarital sex, let's toss you down there for the fashion disaster of wearing polyester pants with a silk blouse. Or cutting your hair.  
> Two:  
> Crimes against others. You only go to Hell if you've taken or otherwise destroyed the very essence of someone's life. If you've murdered, severely maimed or otherwise intentionally inflicted irrepairable damage to a person so that the daily life of the individual will be outside the realm of normal (like intentionally running over your ex-husband and now he has no legs). If you accidentally hit someone in your car, and you do everything in your power to make amends, then that falls under the unintentional and does not earn you a spot in Hell. Refusing to hand someone their epipen in just the next room over when they're having a reaction to a bee sting earns you a spot in Hell too because the inaction/refusal to aid when it would have been easy to also earns you a place in Hell.


End file.
